Superannuation

Jamie Mackay writes

I want to talk about retirement, a word that doesn’t always sit comfortably with rural folk. In the case of farmers it can sometimes even have deadly consequences. I know too many farmers who have either retired early to town, only to die on their La-Z-Boy recliner, or those who have never retired from the farm at all and died with their boots on!

Which leads me to the big political debate of the past week – the age of eligibility for national superannuation. I reckon the solution to the super debate is simple. Lock Bill, Andrew, James and Metiria, Te Ururoa and Marama, David and Peter in a confined space and let them out when they’re reached a bi-partisan agreement on national super. Note that I haven’t included Winston in the aforementioned group of political party leaders, due to his propensity and penchant for peeing into the tent from the outside.

Although it’s admirable Bill is tackling this thorny (some would say no-win) issue in election year, I question the reasoning for the arbitrary peg in the sand in 2037. That can end up being tinkered with by successive governments over the next two decades. Read more »

Cameron Slater

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

He is fearless in his pursuit of a story.

Love him or loathe him, you can’t ignore him.

To read Cam’s previous articles click on his name in blue.

http://whaleoil.co.nz

I’m fast coming to the conclusion that Gareth Morgan is a dead set eff-wit.

The interesting thing is he seems hell bent on proving it to all New Zealand.

Opportunities Party leader Gareth Morgan says he doesn’t support raising the age of superannuation, but he does want means-testing to restrict higher-income earners who don’t need it.

He also told The Nation under his policy everyone would get a Universal Basic Income (UBI) of $10,000 a year, paid for by slashing current super entitlements.   Read more »

Cameron Slater

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

He is fearless in his pursuit of a story.

Love him or loathe him, you can’t ignore him.

To read Cam’s previous articles click on his name in blue.

http://whaleoil.co.nz

Matthew Hooton discusses Bill English’s super scam:

Is it better if it was a cock-up or actually planned?

The kindest thing to say about Bill English’s superannuation announcement on Monday is that it is jolly sporting of him to try to even things up a bit with Labour-Green.

Evidence is that Mr English’s proclamation the government intends to quickly raise the age of retirement over two years from 2037 was entirely an exercise in PR. No government or Parliament can bind its successor, let alone one seven elections from now. Nothing Mr English and Finance Minister Steven Joyce said this week will have any impact whatsoever on Budget 2037 – or even Budget 2018, unless it causes a change of government.

Read more »

Cameron Slater

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

He is fearless in his pursuit of a story.

Love him or loathe him, you can’t ignore him.

To read Cam’s previous articles click on his name in blue.

http://whaleoil.co.nz

Bill English had a brain fart the other day and announced National was going to meddle with superannuation.

Now it has been revealed that the proposed changes will affect about 120,000 voters.

National’s superannuation changes will affect 120,000 people in the first year they are fully implemented, newly-released papers show.   Read more »

Cameron Slater

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

He is fearless in his pursuit of a story.

Love him or loathe him, you can’t ignore him.

To read Cam’s previous articles click on his name in blue.

http://whaleoil.co.nz

Vernon Small comments on the superannuation debate reignited by Bill English.

So the dance of hypocrisy takes another whirl.

The flip-flop-athon of superannuation policy continues.

Those of us condemned to remember, or report on, the 1980s and 1990s can recall Labour breaking an election promise by implementing a superannuation surcharge – effectively means testing the universal pension – and then National increasing the impost after promising “no ifs, no buts, no maybes” to abolish it. The upshot was a cross-party accord that went nuclear, as in Chernobyl.

We can also remember when National tried to argue that reducing the indexation link from 65 per cent of the net average wage to 60 per cent was not a cut – just a reduction in future upward adjustments.   Read more »

Cameron Slater

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

He is fearless in his pursuit of a story.

Love him or loathe him, you can’t ignore him.

To read Cam’s previous articles click on his name in blue.

http://whaleoil.co.nz

Nikkie Kaye calls out Jacinda Ardern over superannuation:

Youth Minister Nikki Kaye has taken a swipe at freshly-appointed Labour deputy Jacinda Ardern over her “flip-flopping” on raising the pension age.

Kaye, 37, and Ardern, 36, will both have to wait an extra two years for state superannuation under National’s plan to raise the age of eligibility to 67 by 2040.

The pair have history after Ardern ran against and lost to Kaye in the largely young professional electorate of Auckland Central in the previous two elections – their contest was labelled the “Battle of the Babes”.

Speaking to media on Tuesday morning, Kaye said many of her friends assumed they wouldn’t get anything from the state when they retired and raising the age was the “most honest thing to do”.   Read more »

Cameron Slater

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

He is fearless in his pursuit of a story.

Love him or loathe him, you can’t ignore him.

To read Cam’s previous articles click on his name in blue.

http://whaleoil.co.nz

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out Winston Peters wasn’t going to have a bar of Bill English’s never-never plan to increase the age of eligibility for superannuation.

New Zealand First’s leader Winston Peters has completely ruled out supporting legislation that would raise the age of entitlement for superannuation.

Prime Minister Bill English yesterday announced his intention to raise the super age from 65 to 67, in six-month increments from 2037 to 2040.

Every other party in Parliament, except ACT, opposes an increase in the age of eligibility.   Read more »

Cameron Slater

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

He is fearless in his pursuit of a story.

Love him or loathe him, you can’t ignore him.

To read Cam’s previous articles click on his name in blue.

http://whaleoil.co.nz

Winston isn’t letting Bill off the hook

National’s record of back flips over NZ Superannuation show they cannot be trusted and that won’t change with Prime Minister Bill English’s plan to increase the age of eligibility to 67, says New Zealand First leader and Northland Member of Parliament, Rt Hon Winston Peters.

“If Mr English had his way he would scrap NZ Super entirely; he has never liked it.

“In Parliament today he displayed either selective memory or a sad case of amnesia over National’s NZ Super performance.

“He has been an MP since 1990; in 1996 he became health minister and in 1999 finance minister yet today he acted as though he wasn’t there, as if saying, ‘I know nothing.’

“But New Zealanders will be asking why they should trust National when this party made a 1990 election promise to raise the age to 65 over a 20 year period in annual increases of three months which after the election they switched to eight years? Read more »

Cameron Slater

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

He is fearless in his pursuit of a story.

Love him or loathe him, you can’t ignore him.

To read Cam’s previous articles click on his name in blue.

http://whaleoil.co.nz

Isaac Davison nails it, Bill English’s superannuation plans are highly unlikely to survive the election.

Prime Minister Bill English’s proposal to lift the retirement age to 67 may not survive past the election after National’s likely coalition partners and opponents roundly rejected it.

The major policy shift by National is not scheduled to take place until 2037. It will affect every New Zealander under 45.

It is also set down to pass into law next year, meaning its progress will hinge on the general election result in September.

Labour said it would not raise the age if it came into power at the election – a position which was backed by its campaigning partner, the Greens.

New Zealand First, which could hold the balance of power after the election, is firmly against lifting the eligibility age. However, leader Winston Peters praised a separate proposal to require immigrants to live in New Zealand for twice as long – 20 years – to get access to NZ Super.

Read more »

Cameron Slater

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

He is fearless in his pursuit of a story.

Love him or loathe him, you can’t ignore him.

To read Cam’s previous articles click on his name in blue.

http://whaleoil.co.nz

Chris Trotter comments on Bill English’s superannuation screw up:

We’ll probably never know whether Monday’s announcement on NZ Superannuation was carefully planned, or simply inept political improvisation. Either way, it is highly likely that Bill English has just cost National the 2017 General Election.

I think it was inept political improvisation but disagree with Chris that it has cost National the election. Labour are so conflicted on this policy and so inept they make even Bill English look competent.

As if high-interest student loans and unaffordable houses were not intergenerational injustice enough for Generation X, a Baby Boomer Prime Minister has just advanced their retirement age from 65 to 67.

For older New Zealanders, English’s announcement has stirred-up bitter memories. Fears that John Key’s pledge to leave NZ Super alone had put to bed for nine years have been reawakened.

Read more »

Cameron Slater

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

He is fearless in his pursuit of a story.

Love him or loathe him, you can’t ignore him.

To read Cam’s previous articles click on his name in blue.

http://whaleoil.co.nz